As an alternative to using
redhat-config-httpd to configure and control Apache, we recommend that you still edit the
httpd.conf file by hand and use command-line instructions to control the Apache httpd service. Table 17-1 shows some common Apache management commands based on the SysV initialization scripts now common across many Linux distributions.
|
Command |
Action |
|---|---|
|
/etc/init.d/httpd start |
Start the web daemon |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd stop |
Stop the web daemon |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd restart |
Stop the daemon and then start it quickly |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd reload |
Reload the configuration files (safer and faster to use if no IP binding changes have been made) |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd status |
Obtain the daemon status |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd -help |
Obtain a listing of init script options |
|
/etc/init.d/httpd configtest |
Test your Apache configuration file changes before reloading/restarting |
| Note |
These commands call daemon initialization scripts that are actually located in the /etc/rc.d/init.d/ directory. A shortcut (symlink) to this directory is /etc/init.d/ . As listed here, the commands are invoked with the shorthand absolute path of /etc/init.d/httpd instead of /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd . |
| Note |
The service httpd start and /etc/init.d/httpd start forms are equivalent. The format you use is entirely a matter of preference, but the former is a Red Hat standard. Many administrators prefer the latter form because they're used to it and because they can use tab completion to "remember" the name of a given daemon. |
Once you have configured Apache to behave in the way you prefer, added your websites, and used the
configtest command to verify you don't have any typos, you can use the
chkconfig command to define the run levels in which Apache (or httpd) will start (and thus at boot time also). When you first look at Apache's run level settings with
chkconfig , you see this:
# chkconfig --list httpd httpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off
This means that
Apache/httpd is not configured to start in any run level at boot time, including the typical default runlevels of either 3 or 5 (in Red Hat-based distros). So in short, httpd will not automatically come up with these settings.
To add
httpd to all of its default run levels (in Red Hat or Fedora Core Linux), simply tell
chkconfig to add it for you:
# chkconfig httpd on
If you check again, you'll now see
httpd included in runlevels 2 through 5:
# chkconfig --list httpd httpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
Or, you could have also configured it to come up at specific runlevels like this:
# chkconfig --level 35 httpd on # chkconfig --list httpd httpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
Now that the run levels are configured, you can start Apache and check to see that it's running:
# /etc/init.d/httpd status httpd is stopped # /etc/init.d/httpd start Starting httpd: [ OK ] # /etc/init.d/httpd status httpd (pid 5653 5652 5651 5650 5649 5648 5647 5646 5643) is running...